Startup devises liquid metal batteries for the grid

Liquid-based heavy-duty battery technology could form foundation of the next-generation electrical grid in which alternative energy will play a key role.

A Boston-area startup has invented new liquid-based heavy-duty battery technology that its founders hope will be the foundation of the next-generation electricity grid in which alternative energy will play a key role. Ambri--yet another company formed out of that bastion of modern invention, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)--is developing giant cells that are comprised of liquid electrodes and an electrolyte capable of storing large amounts of solar and wind power at a low cost.

The battery is the brainchild of Donald Sadoway and Ambri CTO David Bradwell, co-founders of the company that developed the technology at MIT in the lab of Sadoway, a professor of materials chemistry there.